th lily breath and roses sweet and rare.
The zephyrs sang a lullaby as the slow, fiery ball
Ended its trail of gorgeousness behind horizon's wall.
Then gray absorbed each rainbow hue and dark the beauteous landscape grew
As shadowy Evening softly drew her curtain over all.

II

That night around the festal board, 'mid incandescence gay,
Sat Pomp and Pride and Wealth and Power, in sumptuous array,
That night the happy, careless throng were all on pleasure bent,
And Beauty in her jewelled robes to ball and opera went.
'Mid feasting, laughter, song and jest; by music's soothing tones caressed;
The Sunset City sank to rest in peace, secure, content.

III

Unconscious of approaching doom, old San Francisco sleeps
While from the east, all smilingly, the April morning creeps.
See! Playful sunbeams tinge with gold the mountains in the sky,
And hazy clouds of gray unfold--but, hark! What means that cry?
The ground vibrates with sadden shock. The buildings tremble, groan
and rock.
Wild fears the waking senses mock, and some wake but to die.

A frightful subterranean force the earth's foundation shakes;
The city quivers in the throes of fierce, successive quakes,
And massive structures thrill like giant oaks before the blast;
Into the streets with deafening crash the frailer ones are cast.
Half garbed, the multitude rush out in frantic haste, with prayer and
shout,
To join the panic stricken rout. Ho! DEATH is marching past.

A rumbling noise! The streets upheave, and sink again, like waves;
And shattered piles and shapeless wrecks are strewn with human graves.
Danger at every corner lurks. Destruction fills the air.
Death-laden showers of mortar, bricks, are falling everywhere.

IV

"_Fire! Fire!_" And lo! the dread fiend starts. Mothers with babes clasped
to their hearts
Are struggling for the open parts in frenzy of despair.

A hundred tiny tongues of flame forth from the ruins burst.
No water! God! what shall we do to slake their quenchless thirst?
The shocks have broken all the mains! "_Use wine!_" the people cry.
The red flames laugh like drunken fiends; they stagger as to die,
Then up again in fury spring, on high their crimson draperies fling;
From block to block they leap and swing, and smoke clouds hide the sky.

Ha! from the famed Presidio that guards the Golden Gate
Come Funston and his regulars to match their strength with Fate.
The soldiers and the citizens are fighting side by